MET NOTES It seemed like a funny time for the Mets to sit Brian McRae, with the center fielder finally showing his first signs of offensive life this season.
McRae had hit .357 in his last four games, including Tuesday’s home run – his first extra-base hit since April 8. But there he was, conspicuously absent from the lineup for last night’s game against San Diego. And manager Bobby Valentine said it was for his own good, resting his sore knee.
”You know there’s no rhyme or reason to what goes on here,” McRae said of Valentine’s lineup decisions. ”Ain’t nothing I can do about it. I’ve been swinging the bat good the last five or six days or so. But they just said Bobby didn’t like the way I was running [Tuesday] night.
”Hey, I just work here. If I’m in the lineup, I play. If I’m not in the lineup, I don’t play.”
Valentine countered that McRae’s sore left knee had swollen up after the game, and that while the knee brace McRae wears during play helped him, his knee may have swollen up from activity while not wearing the brace.
”What I expect them to know is the difference between being hurt and having pain. I think [veterans] can differentiate between that, have some discomfort and play with that,” Valentine said. ”I have the situation of having to play [them] with it and making it worse for five or six games, or not playing them with it and having it be better in a day or two.
”He has the same situation as Bobby [Bonilla]. Wearing the brace makes it stable during the game. But when you get outside, and you do too much outside of the brace, it aggravates the situation. It gets swollen, and yesterday after the game it was swollen.” *Rick Reed, on the disabled list since April 12 with a torn calf muscle, apparently threw so well before Tuesday’s game that the Mets canceled his workout yesterday.
The plan originally was to have him throw Tuesday and yesterday, and take today off. But Tuesday’s results were so encouraging, Valentine and bullpen coach Randy Niemann moved his progress up a day.
”Randy felt he threw real good [Tuesday],” Valentine said. ”We didn’t see any need to have him throw back-to-back days.” *Bobby Jones (3-0) puts his perfect mark on the line today at 1:40 p.m. against Woody Williams (1-0) in the final game of the Padres series. Allen Watson (1-2) opens the San Francisco series against Shawn Estes (2-1) tomorrow at 7:10 p.m.
Orel Hershiser (1-2) goes against Chris Brock (2-1) Saturday at 1:40 p.m., and Masato Yoshii (1-3) is slated to start against Kirk Reuter (1-1) on Sunday at 1:40 p.m.
